Majoring on Business Minors Can Hurt Your Business

Do you know exactly what you should be doing to build your business? Many people do not have a clue and therefore spend their time doing things that they think are important but are actually stealing from the prospects for the future.

A river flows in the places that are soft. As soon as it comes to a hard place or rocks, it is forced to turn and take on another direction. People can be very much like this. They often do the things that they enjoy and avoid the things that are difficult - at least until they reach the hard place that forces them to make a change.

Often people will become very interested in decorating their offices. They paint and measure window coverings, order furniture and become lost in the interior decorating projects before them. This doesn't bring any income into the business and, in fact, is an expense in both time and materials.

Others devote themselves to doing committee work because they have passion for a cause and believe that they need to be part of the "solution" to help others.

Some people become immersed in things that appear to be necessary - like filing or doing books or preparing handouts. The truth is that these may be important but they are not billable and therefore do not result in dollars deposited into your business account.

There are very few things that actually contribute to your business revenue and you not only need to be aware of this, but also focus on them so that you have a growing and profitable operation.

Here are the things that you need to do:

1. See clients every day - Being "eyeball to eyeball" means that you are making money. Figure out how many hours you need to work every week to meet your financial goals and make sure you are infront of clients for each of the required hours.

2. Other billable activities - If you can be paid for writing reports, scoring tests or doing other things where you will be paid, you are on the right track (don't jeopardize seeing clients though in order to do this).

3. Marketing - If you don't have a steady stream of clients, you are in trouble. When you have a slower week, rather than taking time for personal activities, invest your time into developing new contacts, working with referral sources or other activities that will bring in new clients.

You see, it is all about doing what you get paid to do. If you aren't putting in billable hours, soon you will lose your business and be broke. It's that simple.